Friday, February 16, 2007

A new blog...

content yet to come...

Saturday, June 03, 2006

A thousand-and-one ideas (almost) ... on sharing knowledge

When I last ran into Heather Ford, the setting was almostParadise. But with a twist. It was scenic part of Africa,where her roommate encountered a hotel-room theft and someparticipants (of AfricaSource2) got badly sick after swimmingin the amazingly beautiful Lake Victoria and battling unseenmosquitoes. Heather handed across a book which throws up athousand-and-one fascinating ideas, and many mixed feelings,as did my first encounter with Africa.

'The African Digital Commons: A Participant's Guide 2005' isco-authored by Heather and Chris Armstrong. This 78-page bookcomes from the Link Centre at Johannesburg's Wits University,and is the "collaborative output" of Commons-sense Projectthat's online at www.commons-sense.org

Heather explains it thus, in a brief but succinct foreword:"One of the goals of the Commons-sense Project is to conductresearch that helps equip African activists anddecision-makers with the information they need to developcutting-edge, relevant intellectual property policies andpractices."

So, they "decided to begin with a map -- a map that hopefullypresents a broad picture of how far we've already come inAfrica towards the goal of achieving a 'digital informationcommons', as well as providing some sense of how to grow itfurther."

And, like most road-maps, there's much much more on theground than you first thought, when you look at it closely.

This slim book has four different sections, plus referencesand biographies. It's the third and fourth -- that cover alittle under half of the book -- that are the mostinteresting. Section 3 deals with 'African players,processes, issues' while the fourth focuses on a 'Directoryof African Projects'.

You almost run into an alphabet soup. OAPI, ARIPO, UNECA,NEPAD, TK, FTA, TRIPS Plus, ccSA, FOSS, IPR, DRM, and more.But behind these abbreviations are a whole lot of the "goodguys" and the "bad guys". Some who want to share knowledge,and others who want to use it as a tool to gain every dollar,rand and shilling of profit out of it.

In the three-page introduction, one gets a good grip of theissue. Even if this is a rather complex subject, with a wholelot of potential to get TRIPped over.

It says, "As the writings of Lawrence Lessig and otherscogently argue, the digital revolution is a decidedlydouble-edged phenomenon when it comes to openness andcreativity."

Why so? The internet allows passive 'users' to becomeparticipants and publishers. But, there are also significantmoves "by the handful of traditional 'publishers' to set upbarriers that threaten the potential of the digital realm tolevel the playing field and create a truly universal mediumfor creative expression and technological transfer".

One can pass over the first two sections speedily; these dealwith global issues, obviously meant to be an introduction tothe African reader. But one does get a set of useful linksand introductions -- to groups like the WIPO, theBroadcasting Treaty, the Access to Knowledge (A2K) Treaty, UNagencies, UK's Commission on Intellectual Property Rights ("apioneering attempt by a developed country to viewintellectual property through a developmental lens",librarians, consumer groups, and lawyers.

There's even a one-third page introduction to blogs andwikis, seen from the context of the digital commons.

Quote: "Many of the people connected to the activist groupings covered in this Guide -- librarians, consumer groups, FOSS proponents and lawyers -- are also 'bloggers' -- keepers of weblogs. These online blogs, which mix the values of journal-keeping, journalism, gossip, investigation and a love of interaction and communication, are a valuable and entertaining source of information on, among other things, the information commons. Many blogs are acts of both form and content; they celebrate the digital information commons, while at the same time building it and using it..."

Likewise, issues of open access, open content and theCreative Commons (cc) are also discussed.

This book's worth comes across through the many URLs andweblinks it offers. There are also contact names and emailaddresses, all of which could be of interest to those whobelieve, even if slightly, that knowledge is not just a'product' to be profited on. But a powerful tool to be sharedfor the benefit of humankind.

Take the directory of African projects. It points to researchand advocacy groups that range from university-based computerscience networks, to policy monitors,access-to-learning-material networks (www.access.org.za),Francophone institutions (www.apsidci.org), the AfricanVirtual Library and Information Network of Addis Ababa, ICTpolicy research or campaign organisations (bridges.org,catia.ws), the Commonwealth of Learning, Highway Africa NewsAgency, other networks (OneWorld Africa of Lusaka, Pambazuka,SAIDE or the South African Institute for Distance Education)and more.

SANGONeT in Johannesburg is the Southern AfricanNon-Governmental Organisation Network. Women'sNet is alsobased in Johannesburg. And there are others.

This is a useful book, with a lot of links.

It traces copyright law to the so-called 'Statute of Anne'.

As Wikipedia informs: "The Statute replaced the monopolyenjoyed by the Stationer's Company granted in 1556 during thereign of Mary I which after several renewals expired in 1695.Under this regime, company members would buy manuscripts fromauthors but once purchased, would have a perpetual monopolyon the printing of the work. Authors themselves were excludedfrom membership in the company and could not thereforelegally self-publish, nor were they given royalties for booksthat sold well.

"The statute of 1709 [or, Statute of Anne] vests authorsrather than printers with the monopoly on the reproduction oftheir works. It created a 21 year term for all works alreadyin print at the time of its enactment and a 14 year term forall works published subsequently. It also required thatprinters provide nine copies to the Stationer's Company fordistribution to (official libraries)...."

Enlightenment values tried to balance off the economicinterests of England's booksellers, with the interests of thereading public. But copyright terms have kept gettingextended. In the US, for instance, copyrights extend to theauthor's life plus 70 years. Or a term of between 75 and 95years, in the case of works by more than one author.

As Indian laywer Lawrence Liang from Bangalore comments,"with global capitalism, control over copyrighted worksbecame centered in the hands of media corporations instead ofauthors and artists."

But have the authors seen things a bit too pessimistically?Maybe one should turn-around their statement, and insteadsay: for every digital-rights-management-isation there's aNapsterisation. For every Microsoft, there's a GNU/Linux. Forevery giant multinational Bertelsmann publishing firm,there's a Microsoft.

Why be gloomy and see things the other way round? Power iswith the people. They're just beginning to see the potency ofalternative content-sharing models. Challenges areincreasingly beginning to come up, in the form ofalternatives. And, the fun has just begun....

Sunday, May 14, 2006

A reader to 'the Other India'...

It was at one of those artificially-busy importance-assumingconferences that actually change little in the real worldwhere an old friend thrust a copy of the 'Struggle IndiaReader' into my distracted hands. Welcome relief it was. Fromair-conditioned halls and mindless chatter.

Here are indeed some issues deep from the grassroots. Issuesthat most of us might be hardly even aware of. If there aretwo clear messages that emerge from this 185-page book it'ssimply that, firstly, there's a lot happening in today'sIndia which is simply invisible to the average eye. And,secondly, that alternative publishing is quickly finding itsown feet here. If only we're willing to sit up and take note.

Slickly yet inexpensively produced, this title was publishedby the New Delhi-based PEACE (Popular Education and ActionCentre) group some time back. Reviews for it are overdue; butthen does the media take note of books not churned out viathe mainstream, commercial setup?

As made clear by its preface, the goal is to question theimpact of so-called "development" happening across Indiasince economic liberalisation, privatisation andglobalisation was "unleashed" on India since the mid-eighties.

This fairly slim volume tries to introduce the reader to the'other India', as it were. It focuses on people fighting fortheir resources, a fair deal and their right to life. It isdivided into five sections, showing how the simple (and oftenpoor) Indian citizen has fought back, valiantly if sometimesunsuccessfully, on various issues.

Sub-sections of this book deal with land struggles, workers'struggles, forest struggles, struggles for water, andstruggles against displacement. For those of us who live incontemporary India, these faces of the 21st centurysuperpower-wannabee are not alien or unreal.

We've all encountered this harsh face of the Indian state andits capitalist class at one time or another. A face which canbe harshly efficient, if only it chooses to so be, or if thestakes (financial that is, people don't matter) are highenough for the business-politician-bureaucrat class nexus tomove into overdrive.

This book explains the logic behind land struggles thus:"(India's) highly unequal distribution of land leads to, andis maintained by, various forms of oppression and violence inrural society. The caste system provides an ideologicaljustification for this exploitative structure. Castehierarchy bears a close resemblance to the land-owningpatterns; on the one end, the landlords are predominantlyfrom the upper castes, whereas, on the other, the Dalits aremostly landless."

There's an interesting story of land struggles from centralBihar -- a state today mocked by the rest of India, but whichwas once the home of knowledge and enlightenment and the landof the admirable philosophy of the Buddha centuries ago.

We are reminded that in a region with an extremely low levelof industrialization, agriculture forms the basis oflivelihood of nearly 82% of the population. That's about 60%in Patna and around 90% in the other districts.

So there are many complex issues: land is a source ofconflict, land-reforms and other state interventions, tenancyreforms, minimum wages, feudal power today, movementsfighting back since the late 'seventies, and more. This actsas a good primer for anyone wanting an understanding of acomplex issue.

In the case of workers, the focus of this book goes tostruggles in Hindustan Lever (one of India's largestcompanies, a subsidiary of Unilever the giant multinational,which runs over 60 plants all over the country) and aresource paper on "globalisation and workers' rights".

Hindustan Lever today has a product range from tea and coffeebeverages to ice creams, processed foods, soaps, detergentsand shampoo, to thermometers and industrial products. Itacquired Indian subsidiaries such as Kwality Food and theerstwhile public sector company Modern Foods.

Over 9000 men are employed by the corporate. But thetreatment of workers comes out sharply in this text.

"When you bite into a burger at McDonalds, you probably don't realise where some of it comes from: an obscure factory in Sahibabad in Uttar Pradesh. Workers there process and package sesame seeds ('til'). But they put in 12-hour shifts, don't get any overtime allowances and earn just about Rs 1800 to 2400 (around $50) per month!"

By offering case-studies of diverse 'globalised' factorieswith 'localised' working conditions, this section gives agood insight into the realities of the modern 'globalvillage'. PUDR, the rights' group, also gives an insight intothe politics of outsourcing, the contractualization oflabour, 'lean' production, mobility of capital, mechanizationand jobless growth, and more.

For the issue of forest struggles, we need to shift to thesouthern Indian state of Kerala, and its north-eastern pocketcalled Wayanad. If you go there as a tourist, this looks likesome scenic land out of God's Own Country. But a closer lookwould throw up the harsh face of class- and caste-basedexploitation.

But don't forget the context: over 200 million Indians arepartially or wholly dependent on forest resources for theirlivelihood. This includes seven percent of the country'spopulation, comprising the forest-dwelling 'adivasi'(aboriginal) communities, whose very existence is intricatelylinked to the forests.

In this book, we have a useful recounting of the history ofthe all-India situation, and also a zoom-in to the currentreality of Wayanad.

Also from Kerala comes the story of Plachimada, a name whichhas become synonymous with the anti-Coca Cola struggle there.

To get the setting, we are reminded: "There was a time whenrivers, streams and lakes were full to the brim and waternurtured the people of the earth. But over the centuries, theoveruse and misuse of water has made it a scarce resource."

So one could well imagine, or read up, on what happens when amultinational giant bottling a soft-drink gets sited on 40acres of "what used to be multi-cropped paddy growing lands"in Palakkad, Kerala.

But the people have fought on, even if this issue doesn't getthe coverage it deserves in much of the rest of India.

Displacement is a huge issue for the weak and powerless intoday's India. Naturally, a significant section is devoted tothis -- covering bauxite mining in Kashipur in southernOrissa, the Koel Karo dam in Jharkhand, the lower Sukhtelproject in Orissa, the Mansi Wakal dam in Udaipur, the Tehridam project which is one of the most controversialhydro-power projects in India and the second-largest damproject in Asia in the new state of Uttaranchal, the giantTipaimukh high dam on the Manipur-Mizoram border.

Some figures: since 1947, development projects have uprootednearly 500,000 persons each year. At least 40 million peoplehave been already forced out of their lands and homes, manyof them more than once. Most were not even relocated inplanned resettlement, let alone "rehabilitated". This booksays one estimate puts dams alone as having displaced 21.6million people in India.

"We believe that the capitalist media allow little space forinformation and pro-people analyses on people's struggles.Professional journalists often feel they have done their dutyby merely touching the surface of a few well-known movementsin occasional news stories," say the StruggleIndia team whichcompiled this work.

Obviously, they have a point.

This text reminds us of the harsh realities that many inIndia face in their daily struggles to exist. While it mightseem depressing, the optimism flows from the fact that peopleare willing to stand up and make their voices heard. It is auseful contribution to the understanding of the 'otherIndia', one which urban dwellers and those having it goodoften forget in their haste to make the second-largest countryof the planet a not-so-underdeveloped one.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

India: the gap between rhetoric and reality...

[By Frederick Noronha] India, with its aspirations of being a globalsuper-power in the 21st century, has a long way to go if one takes therankings of the United Nations Development Programme which places thiscountry at 127th among countries worldwide in terms of the humandevelopment index (HDI). India also ranks only 118th among allcountries in terms of its gross domestic product per head.

UNDP calls India (along with China) some of the most "highlyvisible globalization success stories". But it argues thatthat both are "failing to convert wealth creation and risingincomes into a more rapid decline in child mortality". Itsays that deep-rooted human development inequality is "at theheart of the problem".

Some more stark home-truths come out from the UNDP's HumanDevelopment Report 2005. For instance: India alone accountsfor one in five child deaths in the world, amounting to 2.5child deaths annually.

India also has an income per capita similar to Honduras andViet Nam, but a far higher neonatal mortality rate in 2003.Only 42% of Indian children are immunised. Someone born inIndia can expect to live 14 fewer years than somebody born inthe United States!

Likewise, girls born in south Indian state of Kerala, whichis known for its better social indices, are five times morelikely to reach their fifth birthday, are twice likely tobecome literate and are likely to live 20 years longer thangirls born in Uttar Pradesh.

Other shocking figures: In Tamil Nadu, for instance, HIVprevalence rates higher than 50% have been found among femalesex workers.

South Asia, incidentally, has lower levels of poverty andhigher average incomes than Sub-Saharan Africa, but thepercentage of underweight women is four times higher in SouthAsia and the child malnutrition rate is 20% higher.

Eliminating gender inequality in South Asia could reduce theunderweight rate among children less than three years old by13 per centage points, and this translates into 13.4 millionfewer malnourished children, says the UNDP.

One survey in Rajasthan's poorest districts found that overhalf of health centres were closed during periods when theywere supposed to be open. Another survey based on unannouncedvisits to health clincis found that across India, 40% ofclinics lacked a trained person on site at the time of thevisit.

Mortality rates among children aged one to five is 50% higherfor girls than boys in India. "If India closed the gender gapin mortality between girls and boys aged 1-5, the countrywould save an estimated 130,000 lives, reducing the overallchild mortality rate by five percent," says the UNDP. As theUNDP puts it, these young lives are lost each year "becauseof the disadvantage associated with being born with two Xchromosomes".

Here is cause for concern too: "India's capacity toredistribute the benefits of higher growth through the fiscalsystem is constrained by a tax-to-revenue ratio of only 10%.After two decades of growth, that ratio has not increased."

Then, there's the harsh truth, even if it goes against thecurrent neo-liberal orthodoxy: "Market protection has helpedIndia emerge as a global force in the automobile componentssector, with output at $4.2 billion in 2001 and exports worth$800 million. High import barriers created an incentive forforeign investors to locate in India and build alliances withlocal firms. These barriers were reduced slowly, in startcontrast to Latin America."

What more: India combined deep tariff cuts with an improvedgrowth performance in the 1990's. But, the higher growth pathpredates import liberalization by a decade, and tariffsremain relatively high. So is an 'open' economy necessarilygood for growth and human development? This, says the UNDP,remains a "deeply ingrained" idea.

Since 1990, India has reduced its average tariff from morethan 80% to 20%, enabling firms to obtain the imports neededto sustain an "increasingly dynamic growth process". "One ofthe problems in India may be that import liberalization hasnot gone far enough in some areas. Tariffs on inputs formanufacturing are far higher than the world average,hindering the competitiveness of products that rely onimported inputs," adds the UNDP HRD2005.

India's software sector accounts for 16% of exports andprovides jobs to half a million people. Two-thirds of exportsgo to the US, and another quarter to Europe. Almost half ofthese exports -- valued at over $3 billion in 2002 -- aredelivered on site by professional staff.

BARRIERS, GLOBALLY: But globally, there is the reality ofaccess barriers including some immigration-related issues,and "onerous" visa eligibility. For instance, would-beimporters of Indian professional services are required toconduct prior searches in domestic labour markets to provethat no alternative labour supply is available.

They also have to meet wage parity requirements. This meansthat employers have to pay the wage prevailing in the hostcountry (thus negating cost advantages), while foreignworkers have to contribut to social security schemes (towhose benefits they are not entitled).

Software engineers are also required to meet minimumexperience requirements -- five years in the UK and three inthe US -- to pass through cumbersome procedures for workpermits. In addition, there are quota restrictions on howmany workers can enter, and complex "economic needs" tests tobe passed!

India is one of the world's fastest growing export economies.Its exports are rising at more than 10% a year since 1990.But it still accounts for just 0.7% of world exports.

Likewise, India's strengthened "intelletual property" ruleswill delay the entry of generic drugs, driving up prices. Oneestimate for India suggests that costs to householdsassociated with higher prices for medicine will increase bysome $670 million, almost double the current spending on allanti-bacterial medicines.

New threats emerging include serious epidemics breaking outin "several Indian states". India is rated as being "in thefront rank of high-growth globalizing countries" but only toa more modest degree when compared with China.

"India is widely off-track for the child mortality target.The annual rate of decline in child mortality fell from 2.9%in the 1980s to 2.3% since 1990 -- a slowdown of almostone-fifth.... Developments in India and China have globalimplications. India alone accounts for 2.5 million childdeaths annually, one in five of the world total," says theUNDP.

Bangladesh has overtaken India in terms of child-mortalityrate reduction. If India had matched Bangaldesh's rate ofreductio in child mortality over the past decade, some732,000 fewer children would die this year. Clearly, the UNDPargues, there is still a "huge scope" for the rapidreductions in child deaths in India (besides China).

There are other statistics too lending cause for concern.

Female mortality rates remain higher than male upto the ageof 30, reversing the typical demographic pattern. Thesegender differences reflect a widespread preference for sons,particularly in the north Indian states. Girls are valuedless than their brothers, and are often brought to healthfacilities in more advanced stages of their illness, taken toless qualified doctors, and have less money spent on theirhealthcare, says the UNDP.

"Gender inequality is one of the most powerful brakes onhuman development. Women's education matters in its ownright, but it is also closely associated with childmortality," cautions the UNDP. "Apart from being less proneto undernutrition, better educated mothers are more likely touse basic health services, have fewer children at an olderage and are more lilely to space the births -- all factorspositively associated with child survival. As well asdepriving girls of a basic right, education inequalities inIndia translated into more child deaths."

Four Indian states account for more than half of childdeaths. These are: Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and UttarPradesh. By contrast, states like Kerala have a whollydiffering gender record.

"Translating economic suceess into human development advanceswill require public policies aimed explicitly at broadeningthe distribution of benefits from growth and globalintegration, increased public investment in rural areas andservices, and above all political leadership to end poorgovernance and address the underlying causes of genderequality," adds the UNDP.

It sees encouraging signs "that this leadership may bestarting to emerge".

It points to the 2005-launched $1.5 billion National RuralHealth Mission, targetting some 300,000 villages with a focuson the poorest states of the north and north-east.Commitments have come to hike public spending from 0.9% ofthe national income to 2.3%.

Spending on education has also been increased. States likeHimachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have notched up rapidprogress in education, sometimes by increasing incentives,such as free school meals, scholarships and free textbooks --aimed at increasing the participation of poor households.

In Maharashtra, a three-year pilot project covering 39villages extending basic ante-natal care programmes throughhome-based care provisions and simple clinical interventionscost just $5 per person covered. Infant mortality fell from75 deaths per 1,000 live births from 1993-95 to 39 deathsthree years later. Morality in an adjacent district hadmeanwhile declined from 77 deaths per 1,000 live births toonly 75 only over the same period.

It's not a question of how much is spent and what servicesare available. Even where public health services areavailable, they are often not used by the poor. For instance,in India, a large share of demand s direccted towards"poorly-qualified private providers".

One survey in Rajasthan's poorest districts found poorhouseholds used private health providers even when nominallyfree public services were available. One reason: over half ofall health centres were closed during period when they weresupposed to be open. When facilities are open, they oftenlack a trained staff member on site. For India as a whole, asurvey found that 40% of the clinics lack a trained person onsite at the time of unannounced visits.

"Political leadership of a high order will be needed toaddress these challenges. Failure to provide it and to extendhealth and education opportunities to all, regardless ofwealth and gender, will ultimately act as a constraint onIndia's future prospects in the global economy," says theUNDP bluntly.

On the positive side, South Asia has generally "much lowerlevels of inequality" than Latin America and Sub-SaharanAfrica. It also notes that India continues to be a "thrivingdemocracy".Integration into global markets has enhancedwealth creation, generated economic dynamism and raisedliving standards for "many millions" in India, apart fromChina.

India's Kerala state has an urban death rate lower than thatfor African Americans in Washington DC. UNDP also praisesMaharashtra's Employment Guarantee Scheme. It says: "Sincethe mid-1970's, it has provided agricultuwral labourers andsmall farmers with up to 100 days in paid employment on ruralworks programs. Women account for just under half thebeneficiaries. Extending the program to the whole of Indiawould cost an estimated 0.5% to 1% of national income intransfers to 40 million rural labourers and smallholders. Ifeffectively targetd, this would lift most of the recipientsabove the poverty line."

UNDP also notes that in West Bengal, the agricultural incomesrose following tenancy reforms and the recongition of theland-rights of the poor.

Is there cause for hope? At the 4% annual per capita growthrate achieved since 1980, incomes double every 17 years. Withthe 1% per capita growth rate India experienced in the twodecades before 1980, it took 66 years for incomes to double.

Says the UNDP: "Because incomes have been growting morerapidly in China and (less spectacularly) in India than inhigh-income countries over the past two-decades, the averagegap has been closing in relative terms. This reverses a trendtowards increased global inequality that started in the 1820sand continued until 1992." But on 2000-05 growth trends, itwill still take India until 2106 to catch up with high-incomecountries.

Over the past two decades, India has moved into the "premierleague" of world economic growth. High technology exports arebooming and India's emerging middle-class consumers havebecome a magnet for foreign investors. But the pick-up growthhas not translated into a commensurate decline in poverty.Improvements in child and infant mortality are slowing. Indiais now off-track for these millenium development goalstargets.

Some of India's southern cities may be "in the midst of atechnology boom". But one out of every 11 Indian childrendies in the first five years of his or her life, due to alack of low-technology, low-cost interventions. Malnutritionhas hardly improved in the past decade. It affects half ofIndia's children. About one in four girls and one in ten boysdo not attend primary school. Extreme poverty is concentratedin rural areas of the northern poverty-belt states -- Bihar,MP, UP and West Bengal. Income growth has been most dynamicin other states, urban areas and the service sectors. Ruralpoverty has fallen in some states like Gujarat and TamilNadu. But nationally, rural unemployment is rising,agricultural input is increasing at least than two percent ayear, agricultural wages are stagnating and the growth isvirtually jobless.

But there's also bad news globally for the fight againstpoverty. UNDP admits that as government prepare for the 2005UN summit, the overall report card on progress "makes fordepressing reading". It adds, "The promise to the world'spoor is being broken." (ENDS)

Saturday, November 26, 2005

In the campaign, a few scraggly lines can pack a powerful punch

By Frederick Noronhafred at bytesforall.org

For Leif Packalen (59) it all started when his Finnish friend in Tanzania wrote in to ask if Leif had anyway of transferring useful dairy-cattle ideas from Ethiopia to the poor who so badly needed it. Leif's romance with the scraggly line has gone strong for over a decade-and-half. Now, he's spreading the message across parts of Africa and South Asia.

For Leif, and his New Delhi-based pen-and-ink friend colleague Sharad Sharma, comics are not just something trivial that entertain kids. These drawings say much more than the proverbial thousand words of the picture -- more so when large sections of people still can't read or are sticken by poverty, illiteracy and a crying need for information that reflects their reality.

Leif Packalen started World Comics and Sharad Sharma picked up and extended the idea via worldcomicsindia.com. While Leif -- a former commercial attache in Africa for the Embassy of Finland -- has held training camps in half-a-dozen African countries, Sharad has been spreading the idea across half-a-dozen Indian states in this sub-continent sized country, and other parts of South Asia.

In end-November 2005, both teamed up in Goa's sleepy Madkai village, to host a training-for-trainers camp, which they hope will spread the idea, to more of those who can use it.

Put briefly, their idea is remarkably simple -- yet effective. You don't need to be an artist to express yourself in drawing. "If you have a good story, you can manage with less skillful drawings. But if you have a lousy story, there's no drawing that can rescue it," Leif told a dozen-and-half trainers-in-the-making at Goa.

On simple A4-sized paper worked, non-profit groups and tribal young men and women find an alternative to searching for that elusive access to the media. Leif's message is: wall-poster comics can be put up anywhere. Wall-poster comics create local debate. Wall-poster comics are simple to make, and inexpensive.

"The idea is to enable people who have something to say, to convert their ideas into comic-format. This can then be transferred into a wall-poster or a brochure," he explains.

Sharad says that "anyone from eight to eighty" can work on this idea. And, he has the creative work of Lakhindra Nayak of Jharkhand, Deepak from Uttaranchal, Champalal of MP, Sujata in Orissa, Noel from Tamil Nadu, Zuala of Mizoram and Rina of Nagaland to make his point.

In largely-literate Finland itself, this media is being harnessed largely for marginalised groups. Immigrants, refugees, minorities. "But I must say, our international work takes most of our time," adds Leif, who incidentally studied business administration and international marketing. He also worked in a development cooperation project in Tanzania, after being an embassy official in Nigeria and Sudan.

So, he's not an artist?

"I've trained myself," he corrects you speedily. "On realising the power of comics, I went to a comic-making course. Then, to drawing classes. In fact, I started drawing only at the age of 42, and had not drawn anything before that. Adult (continuing) education is very good in Finland."

Drawing, he believes, is a skill you acquire only by drawing. "It's not a gift from god. I took a degree in commercial art in 1998, at the age of 52."

Sharad Sharma, an artist who has worked with Indian mainstream television, has been extending Leif's idea, and his slogan of 'comics power'. But he's been not just stopping where Leif left off, and invites keep coming across South Asia for him to conduct trainings. "This is my 25th workshop in one year. We have been busy (and can only manage (to spread the idea) by) training more trainers," says Sharad.

Leif adds: "I've been quite many times to India. But WorldComicsIndia has become very strong. So, now, I mostly come here to learn. My vision is to see this method of grass root communication being exported from India to other places."

"We develop pictorals on parenting issues," says Rina Nath of Kolkata. From the poor urban quarters of Manchester (UK) come two community workers Kezia Lavan and Kath Taylor who say: "We hope to use this idea in building more community participation (among those marginalised in an affluent society). We had a wonderful workshop with World Comics in May this year."

Meanwhile, in Mizoram, the idea is being moulded to preserve almost-forgotten folk tales, and pass these onto local children, in the more-than-catchy comics form. In Tamil Nadu, some of the victims of the December 2004 tsunami were also encouraged to use the comic form to get an alternative media voice for themselves.

"Most of the time when the word 'comics' is uttered, people think it's for kids. But anyone from eight to 80 can participate (in the training). It's not even necessary to be an artist," reassures Sharad. Involving women is important, he stresses. Men take to comics more easily, but women hold the key in development.

Sharad encourages trainers to get neophytes to write a story, break it into manageable parts, translate words into visuals, place the text on a rough draft, boldly knock out all but the bare-minumum of wordage, and so on....

For their work, they already have something to show. It's an 28-page booklet subtitled 'Wall-poster Comics: A Great Campaign Tool'. It carries cartoons in the Mizo language, tips of how to get your message out, and suggestions on how to 'text' your drawings. Then, there also are stories of afforestation in Jharkhand, the neighbour's pig from the North East, drug-addiction issues, the story of an eye-doctor from Madhya Pradesh, and a Jharkhandi story of elections... from a people's perspective. You wouldn't think a line-form more associated with entertaining affluent and middle-class kids could actually talk all these issue.

Villagers can surely pick up the rudimentary elements of drawing. They do need some tips on how to reflect the moods in an egg-shaped face. Or how to depict people and motion. Drawing movement, sound and other effects is also briefly explained.

The end-message is simple: this simple idea works. If only more could get down to try it out. 'Adivasis neh jeeti ladayee' (Tribals won the battle) is the title of one theme about the story of the Tawa Dam project in Madhya Pradesh. "When you're using comics in this way, there should be an insider element in it," says Leif. And the voice does come across. ###